


A Toddler's Will

by Grace Kay (Drummerchick7)



Series: A Little WayHaught Family [3]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: EFA Fic Challenge 2019, F/F, Graphic Depictions of Motherhood, Wayhaught - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 12:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17704265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drummerchick7/pseuds/Grace%20Kay
Summary: EFA Challenge 2019 Prompt: Toothpaste. Nicole gets covered in it. And other things.





	A Toddler's Will

**Author's Note:**

> FAIR WARNING: Some of this gets a little gross. If baby poop is the worst for you, maybe skip this one. Or skip the first half, at least. Otherwise, thank you to Baggerheda for beta! And for generally being a wonderful friend.

A tiny fist flew into the air. “No!” a small, mighty voice wailed. “Don’ wanna!” The fist crashed into the surface of the water, splashing it everywhere.

Nicole sputtered, her face and shirt dripping water. But she was undeterred. She’d been covered in Waverly’s breastmilk, snot, urine, and at one time, projectile vomit. A little bathwater wouldn’t stop her.

“Toothbrushing is non-optional, kid. Sorry.” Nicole gathered both tiny, defiant fists in one hand and pinned Julie against the back wall of the bathtub. She got the toothbrush in and started brushing.

“No, Mommy!” The baby kicked the water, covering Nicole once more, except this time with the addition of frothy toothpaste spittle.

“I’m having more luck _out_ of the bath!” Waverly called from the other room, where she was brushing Elizabeth’s teeth.

Julie wriggled away from Nicole, stood up, and squatted, a look of challenging anger coming over her chubby toddler face.

 _Plop_.

Nicole blinked, dumbfounded. Her child had just _pooped in defiance._ Right in the bathwater.

Julie sat down and started splashing the poop-water all over Nicole, giggling a toddler’s belly laugh of delight.

“I… don’t…”

Five minutes later, she had Julie in the shower next to her while Waverly bleached the bathtub in the other bathroom. Julie was entranced by the water falling on her, a look of pure and unadulterated joy and fascination on her little face.

Nicole sighed. This wasn’t how she’d planned to spend her evening: scrubbing baby shit-water out of her hair. But Julie was happy - of course she was, she had won the argument about whether her teeth would be brushed tonight - and Nicole loved seeing her little ones happy.

She squatted and soaped Julie up, then picked up the wriggling, slippery little thing and stood her under the water to rinse her off. Julie sighed and settled into the embrace, wrapping her arms around Nicole’s neck.

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” she sing-songed, almost mocking Nicole that she’d won. Except not really. This was what she did when she hugged Nicole, something Nicole secretly imagined to be her way of saying, “I love you, Mommy.”  She tried to take a moment to close her eyes and enjoy the feeling of her baby’s warm little body against her own body, with its perfect still-new skin and the total trust inherent in the way she molded to Nicole. They wouldn’t be doing this sort of thing for much longer. The kids were almost two years old and this would soon grow inappropriate.

Once Julie was rinsed off, Nicole set her down to play and set about scrubbing herself from top to bottom. She did not want to go to bed later thinking she might have missed a spot of her poo-tamination.

Bedtime went better. Waverly got Julie’s teeth brushed while Nicole got a diaper on her, and then each child demanded a different mother rock them to sleep, so Nicole sat with Waverly in her lap and both children in _Waverly’s_ lap and rocked. They sang three songs, got their stuffed unicorns Wynonna had given them at birth, and snuggled into the blankets from Gus in their cribs. Somehow, magically, the girls went to sleep without further incident and Waverly and Nicole were free to clean the rest of the house before watching some TV.

“This toothbrushing thing is going to be a problem,” Nicole said quietly at some point, only half-watching the show.

“I think you need to give up doing it in the bath,” Waverly said, stroking Nicole’s wrist in just that way that communicated “I’m right, just do it my way.”

Nicole had thus far resisted. Her way made _sense_ . The bath was wet. The toothbrush was wet. You wash your body in the bath. You brush your teeth to wash them. Have the toddler brush their teeth at bathtime! But Nicole knew to surrender when her way wasn’t working. And she especially knew which battles to pick when it came to her _wife_.

“Yeah. You’re right. I should just do it after the bath. I’ll just have to live with toothpaste all over me until they can do it themselves.”

Waverly smiled and leaned into Nicole’s side. “I bet it’ll go smoother.”

The next night, it did not go smoother. Julie ended up needing a change of pajamas, she fought the toothbrushing so hard. Foamy spit also covered Nicole, and there sat Julie, brows furrowed and her teeth only half-brushed. Even Waverly couldn’t use her gentleness to coax Julie into cooperating. They decided to let it lie and just put the newly-garbed baby to bed.

* * *

“I was reading online about this kind of toothbrush aversion,” Waverly began one night, a week after the bathtub pooping incident.

“Oh yeah?” Nicole said, refreshing the pasta and mushy veggies on the kids’ plates.

“Yeah. Well, you pointed out Julie hasn’t been eating toast and stuff, and then that she was only eating soft things. So I looked up both separately, and the Internet suggested the two together, so I followed that link and… well, I think our baby needs to see a dentist if it doesn’t clear up in another week.”

Nicole looked up. “A dentist?”

Waverly nodded. “Yeah. I think she’s having a hard time teething and her whole jaw is hurting her.”

Nicole’s heart hurt. “My poor baby!” she said, then knelt next to Julie. “Does your mouth hurt, Julie?” She pointed to her own jaw.

The child looked up and blinked her brown eyes, then nodded. “Yah,” she said, short and sharp like she always did, a nod just as sharp accompanying it.

“I’ll get you some medicine to help it feel better, okay?”

“Oooooh!” the child exclaimed, dropping her pasta and clapping her sauce-drenched palms together. She loved Tylenol. The shit was so damn sweet it was like candy to the children.

Nicole hurried to get a needleless syringe full while Waverly watched over dinnertime. She came back and fed the medicine to her eager baby, then filled the syringe with water and let Elizabeth have her dose of “medicine,” too.

Then, half an hour later and post-bath time, Nicole dressed Julie in her pajamas and got down on the floor with her daughters for a bit more playtime before bed.

“Julie,” she said after reading a book. “Honey, can Mommy look at your mouth? Maybe I can make it feel better?”

Julie looked up at her with a dubious expression. “No bwush.”

“No honey, no toothbrush. Just my finger. I just want to feel and look.”

Julie continued to stare up at Nicole from her lap for a moment before nodding and shifting so she was lying down. She opened her mouth and produced the requisite “Ah” sound and Nicole took a look using her phone’s flashlight.

“See anything?” Waverly asked, still putting on Elizabeth’s pajamas.

“Not really,” Nicole answered. She put the phone away and stuck her finger in there instead. All the while, Julie continued her “open your mouth and say ‘ah’” routine.

Nicole ran her finger over Julie’s gums, finding a hard bump where her next tooth should be appearing, and Julie yelped and shut her mouth. “Ow, Mommy!” she yelled, indignant.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Nicole said, allowing her child to get up from her lap in a huff. “There’s a tooth there trying to come in.” She watched Julie walk to Waverly and pull on her skirt, asking to be picked up. “You were right.”

“I’m always right,” Waverly said, flashing a quick grin as she put Elizabeth down and picked Julie up. Elizabeth crossed the room and crawled into Nicole’s lap, magically producing a book Nicole hadn’t seen her grab.

Nicole smiled, opening the book as Elizabeth whined for her to start reading it already. This would be okay. They could take any problem. She just needed to remember that when her kid covered her in toothpaste, she should check in with Waverly.

Because Waverly was always right.


End file.
